Tag Archives: Delhi

Air India is planning to double its direct non-stop flights between Delhi and San Francisco (USA) from three times a week to daily in the winter schedule. According to a news report, a senior Air India official said, “This flight has clearly proved that it does not take years to develop a route. We are flying planes with average 88 per cent loads and are also meeting the total cost of the flight. We are going to make it a daily flight most likely from November.” Air India, which launched this flight last December, is the only airline that flies direct on this route. (Source: Economic Times)

Effective September 26, 2016, IndiGo (6E) will operate its new daily non-stop flight between Chandigarh and Dubai at an all-inclusive return fare of Rs. 10,000. The airline also announced additional daily non-stop flight between Chandigarh and Delhi.Speaking on the launch to Dubai, Aditya Ghosh, President, IndiGo said, “We are very excited about the introduction of new launch from Chandigarh to Dubai. Chandigarh has been promising for us at IndiGo. We are excited to provide an international connection from Chandigarh which has been a long standing request from the people of city. The new service connecting Chandigarh with Dubai will reinforce our commitment to the State of Punjab & Haryana. This will also provide increased convenience for customers travelling from Himachal Pradesh & other adjoining cities of Punjab & Haryana.”

The resorts team from Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts, a chain of 14 hotels and resorts in Sri Lanka, visited Delhi last week to meet with the travel agents. The team led by Sunimal Senanayake, Sector Head, Cinnamon’s resort properties in Sri Lanka & Maldives, included Senior Vice President Sales, marketing communications manager and sales manager of the resort properties, who were pleased to meet the travel agents and understand the perspective of the Indian traveller. Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts also participated in GPS, Chandigarh which was held on 21st and 22nd July 2016.

The Ministry of Tourism (MOT) is all set to hold Bharat Parva from Aug 12-18 in line with the Independence Day celebrations. Vinod Zutshi, Secretary, Tourism, Government of India, revealed, “We are hosting a Bharat Parva at the India Gate Rajpath Lawns and it is part of the India Independence Day Celebration from August 12-18.  The Tourism Ministry will organise the same and we are going to bring in lots of attractions for the people. The idea is to create a festive and patriotic mood and involve people. We will have state pavilions and they are very excited about the same. The festival will have cuisines, food court, handicrafts and cultural programmes from all states on all the days. We’ve also involved local, state and regional associations based in Delhi for the festival as well.”

Travelport and OYO has announced a new agreement whereby 6,000 hotel properties offered by OYO will be made available through Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform to its travel agency users, both in India and around the world. OYO currently operates in more than 180 Indian cities, including Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Goa. Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform connects hotel providers and independent properties to its 68,000 connected agencies worldwide, in turn, offering travellers more hotel choices as Travelport now offers 650,000 unique hotel properties. Kavikrut, Chief Growth Officer, at OYO said, “We are pleased to partner with Travelport and take our offerings to a wider audience. Both OYO and Travelport are recognised for leveraging innovative technology capabilities. We are confident of utilising this synergy to unlock new growth areas for both partners.” The agreement with OYO is the latest example of Travelport responding to the needs of its agents to add the hotel content they need in their local regions.  It also responds to the needs of hoteliers by giving them access to the international travel booking industry. Once on Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform, travel agents globally have access to the hotel content through their normal workflow, eliminating time-consuming and inefficient bookings across different channels.

In a bid to expand its India portfolio, Paul Gregorowitsch, CEO, Oman Air, said that Oman Air wants to increase its weekly flights from the current 126 from Muscat to 175 weekly flights by 2018. He said, “We currently fly double daily flights to six out of the 11 destinations in India with 21,147 seats. Our current bilateral agreement allows us only so much. If we are allowed more, we will opt to go triple daily to these six same cities namely Mumbai, Delhi, Kochi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad as our load factors are already close to 90 per cent thanks to the travel trade.” Gregorowitsch was visiting Mumbai to talk about Oman’s national carrier’s growth, strategy and expansion plans. The airline also hosted its agent partners for a networking and Iftar party. The airline celebrates 23 years of its India operations.

In response to competition in the global aviation market, Korean Air has announced some network realignment. Commencing December 2016, Korean Air will introduce direct flights from Seoul to New Delhi. The capital is a commercial hub for many Korean and global companies. In addition to corporate travel, New Delhi is currently in high demand as a tourism destination.

Vistara announces additional frequency between Delhi and Guwahati. Effective June 18, 2016, Vistara will operate double daily on the Delhi-Guwahati route. Introductory one-way fare starting Rs 2,700 in Economy Class, Rs. 5,000 in Premium Economy and Rs. 15,000 in Business Class. Guwahati, the gateway to the northeast, is the largest and most cosmopolitan city in Assam and serves as the starting point for most north eastern itineraries.  With the addition of the new frequency, Vistara will now offer convenient connections to Guwahati from Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Srinagar, and from Guwahati to Bagdogra, and to Mumbai and Ahmedabad via Delhi.

Air India Express has commenced its direct services from Delhi to Dubai and Delhi-Abu Dhabi. Air India Express will operate the two direct flights to Dubai and Abu Dhabi daily. New Boeing 737-800 aircraft with capacity to carry 189 passengers are being deployed. “The inaugural flight to Dubai, IX 141, took off with 166 passengers from New Delhi at 9.05 am on Sunday. The daily flight to Abu Dhabi will be effective Monday,” Air India Express said in a release. The entry of Air India’s international budget arm into Delhi is likely to intensify competition in the lucrative Gulf routes from the national capital since other Indian carriers have recently increased their frequencies. SpiceJet, IndiGo and Jet Airways have flights on Gulf routes, a PTI report stated. Headquartered in Kochi, Air India Express flies from 13 places across the country to as many destinations in the Middle-East and South-East Asia.

In a network restructuring of its overseas offices, VisitBritain has decided to make Mumbai its head office in India. At present the main office is in New Delhi and while they will continue to maintain this office, they plan to increase their focus and trade relations from Mumbai. “We are looking at a refocus in India and moving our major office to Mumbai so that we are much more aligned to the travel trade and work more closely with the trade to build product knowledge,” says Patricia Yates, Strategy & Communications director, VisitBritain. In the first nine months of 2015, UK saw a 13 per cent growth in Indian visitors but the total spend was down by three per cent.